She couldn’t tell her mother about these things, though, because Mother was so sure of herself that she would dismiss Rebekah’s experiences as being her own imaginings. You’re a clever girl, that’s what Mother would say, so you think up clever ideas and then give the credit to your God. Very modest of you, but what you really end up worshiping is yourself, don’t you think? Oh, Rebekah knew exactly how Mother’s mind worked, because didn’t she think of these doubts herself, during dark moments when her life didn’t seem to be going very well? Then she would think back and remember how it felt. How when these ideas from God entered her mind, they came with such surety that she simply knew them to be true and acted on them in the moment. While her own ideas came with doubt, and she had to wrestle with them before she could act. It was completely different—and impossible to explain. At least to someone like Mother, who could explain anything away with a flick of her wit.

Be honest, Rebekah told herself. I do the same thing. I did it just now, to her, explaining away the prayer that Asherah answered.

From the outside, my faith in God looks just like her faith in Asherah. But I know the difference. I have felt him touch my heart and mind, and there is no possibility of doubt for me.

When her prayer was “answered,” Mother took it to mean that she was chosen by Asherah. Has God chosen me?

Immediately she rejected the vanity implied by the question. Chosen her? What would that mean? Abraham was chosen. He had the birthright. But Rebekah? There were no great promises to her. God had never actually spoken to her, not in words.

No, God has merely answered my prayers from time to time, as he might do for anyone who does her best to serve him.

Except that Father and Laban have never spoken of having that sudden breath of knowledge like those God gave me.

Again she tried to drive the thought from her mind. She was not chosen above her father and brother.

“It is really quite rude,” Mother said, “to suddenly fall silent during what was supposed to be a conversation.”

“I’m sorry,” Rebekah apologized, and offered some excuse about going off into her own thoughts. When Mother asked what those thoughts might be, Rebekah evaded her and, with her newfound skills at conversation, turned the topic to something else. Mother knew what she was doing, of course, but how could she complain when she herself had taught Rebekah how to do this?